The Dead Zone

In 1970, Johnny lives and teaches high school in Cleaves Mills, Maine. He dates a fellow teacher named Sarah Bracknell. One night, Sarah goes to Johnny’s apartment and he scares her with a “dime-store Halloween mask” (23). She quickly forgives him. As they prepare to go to the last county fair of the year, Sarah thinks about how she prefers the charming Johnny to her first boyfriend, Dan, who mistreated and abused her. However, Sarah and Johnny have not yet had sex.

Sarah and Johnny enjoy the food and rides at the fair and talk about how much they like one another. They kiss, and Sarah invites Johnny to spend the night at her apartment. Feeling lucky, Johnny decides to play the Wheel of Fortune game. His head aches for a moment and he has a sudden feeling about which numbers to select. Johnny wins repeatedly as a crowd cheers him on. Sarah begins to feel dizzy so Johnny places one final bet. He wins $540, three weeks’ salary, just as Sarah’s nausea becomes so intense that she vomits. Johnny guides her back to the car. As he drives, he tells Sarah that he loves her. She thanks him and they continue in “comfortable silence” (50). 

Johnny drives Sarah to her apartment. She lays on her sofa and blames food poisoning for her sickness, assuring Johnny that he does not have to stay with her. She asks about the Wheel of Fortune and Johnny admits that sometimes he gets “feelings” about what is going to happen. Sarah tells Johnny she loves him as he leaves to take a cab home. During the ride, the cab crashes. 

Johnny’s father Herb and Herb’s extremely religious wife Vera drive to Eastern Maine hospital where Johnny is in critical condition. Sarah receives news of the accident the next morning. She meets Herb and Vera for the first time at the hospital while Johnny is still in the operating room. Vera, clutching her Bible, is appalled that Johnny has a girlfriend but Herb tries to comfort Sarah. After waiting all day, a doctor informs them that Johnny is in a coma and it is uncertain when–if ever–Johnny will wake up. Vera is convinced that God has spared Johnny; Herb takes Vera home, promising to call Sarah with any updates on Johnny’s condition. The memory of Johnny haunts Sarah over the following months. She returns to the hospital most days with Vera and Herb. With no signs that Johnny will recover, Verb becomes convinced that the end of the world and the Christian Rapture are coming. Herb uses the family savings to pay for Johnny’s treatment and Sarah fears he may become bankrupt. She promises to stay in touch with Johnny’s parents.

With Johnny still in a coma, an unnamed man referred to as “the killer” lurks beside a bandstand and smokes a cigarette. He is yet to kill anyone, but thinks about his abusive mother as he watches a woman named Alma cross the park. The killer dated Alma briefly, so she trusts him when he beckons her over. The killer beats Alma to death then violates her body. No one finds the corpse on the bandstand until the next day. 

Herb and Vera return to their daily routines and spend all their savings on Johnny’s healthcare. Sarah exists in “a kind of limbo, waiting for something to happen” (80). She corresponds regularly with Herb, who complains about Vera’s growing obsession with religious pseudoscience and scams. Sarah declines when men ask her out on dates.

In 1971, Greg Stillson owns an insurance and real estate business in Ridgeway, New Hampshire. Occasionally, he works as a deputy for the local police department. Stillson blackmails a fascistic old biker named Sonny Elliman into doing him a future favor. Stillson plans to run for mayor of the small town.

Sarah dates a young lawyer named Walter Hazlett. When their relationship becomes serious, she visits Johnny in the hospital one final time, hardly recognizing him. In 1972, she marries Walter. She invites Herb and Vera to the wedding but only Herb attends as Vera is living on a farm in Vermont, “waiting for the end of the world” (89). A few months later, Vera returns to Herb. When she refuses to relinquish her outlandish beliefs, Herb considers leaving her but knows that he never will. Reluctantly, he wishes “Johnny would die” (92) to end the turmoil of not knowing whether he will recover.

In 1973, a lightning rod salesman introduces himself to a quiet bar using the name Andrew Dohay. He fails to make any sales. In 1974, Sarah becomes pregnant with Walt’s baby. Herb breaks his leg while working; Vera becomes convinced again that the world is about to end, and they fight more than ever. Sarah gives birth on Halloween in the same hospital where Johnny is still in a coma. On the first day of 1975, two boys find a body in the melting snow. The body belongs to Carol Dunbarger, the fourth victim of the Castle Rock Strangler. 

Almost two weeks after the discovery of Carol Dunbarger’s body, Johnny begins to stir. In a dream-like state, he relives the moments before the crash. He imagines familiar faces standing over him but cannot speak to them. Eventually, he wakes up after nearly five years in a coma. Amid the shock of the doctors and nurses, Johnny realizes that he instantly knows information about anyone who touches him. He touches a doctor and is horrified to discover that he has been in a coma for years. Before they visit the hospital, Herb tells Vera not to overwhelm their son with her exaltations about “the bleeding holy Jesus” (115). Johnny is shocked by how much his parents have aged. When he hugs them, he instantly knows about their lives. Johnny cries. His parents tell him about the last four years. Johnny worries about his mother’s religious fervor and is saddened by the news of Sarah’s marriage. 

Dr. Brown and Dr. Weizak run neurological tests on Johnny. He struggles to visualize certain images. The doctors explain that Johnny may have injured a small part of his brain and that he may have lost certain memories. The doctors also speculate that children who survive traumatic brain injuries are more likely to recover from comas later in life. However, Johnny cannot remember his slip on the ice in 1953. The doctors warn him that his physical recovery will be “long and painful” (125) but are optimistic. When Johnny shakes Dr. Weizak’s hand, he enters “some kind of trance” (126). Suddenly, he knows Dr. Weizak’s entire family history. After asking to examine a photograph of Dr. Weizak’s dead mother, Johnny has a vision of her time in Poland during World War II and the years beyond. However, there are some parts of the history that Johnny cannot see. He describes these missing parts as being in “the dead zone” (128), just like the images he could not visualize during the test. Johnny reveals that Dr. Weizak’s mother is alive and living under a different name. Dr. Weizak is intrigued but Doctor Brown believes that Johnny’s announcement is “nonsense” (129). Johnny returns to his room and experiences one of his occasional bouts of depression. 

Later that evening, Herb and Vera visit Johnny. He listens in bafflement as Herb tries to explain the Watergate scandal to him. By the time Herb and Vera leave, Johnny is reeling from the political upheaval that occurred while he was in his coma. Dr. Weizak comes to his room; he has tracked down the woman Johnny claims is his mother. He heard her voice briefly on the telephone but was too overwhelmed to talk to her and he does not want to disturb the peaceful life she has made for herself. Dr. Weizak is concerned that news of Johnny’s supernatural abilities will become public knowledge.